As she waited for the toaster she turned at the sound of the couch springs creaking. Mick entered the kitchen, his empty cup and her full cup in his hands.
‘You are a student at the university, are you not? History?’
‘That’s right. Coach Gwynn’s brother is my adviser,’ she told him, and stepped aside as he placed the dirty dishes in the sink. ‘He told me you didn’t speak any English when you first came to this country.’
‘Very little. Coach speak Russian, so not so bad to start. Team mates help – except for hairy palms.’
Julia snorted, and held her hands up when the question appeared on his face. ‘I’m really not going to be the one to tell you.’
‘You must. I need to know why I punch them in face.’
She doubled over, then cringed as she found herself giving in. ‘People say that a man gets hairy palms when he…pleasures himself too much.’
Mick cocked his head, one brow raising up. ‘That is stupid.’
‘It was a bad joke to play on you.’
‘No, it is stupid to think that man can pleasure himself too much.’
Struck dumb, Julia could only gawk under his scrutiny, until his lips twitched.
‘That is my joke,’ he told her, and shrugged. ‘Not a good joke, I see.’
‘Actually, it wasn’t that bad,’ she conceded, ‘though if you really want to get back at them, I suggest you forget the violence and teach them a few fake lines in Russian for picking up women.’
‘Already done, and is probably why they told me about hairy palms.’
‘Then I was clearly mistaken about who the asshole is, Mick.’ The toaster popped, and she quickly flipped breakfast on to her plate. ‘Hungry?’
The back of her neck prickled as he moved behind her. His breath tickled her ear as he peered over her shoulder. ‘Strawberry?’
Julia expelled the last of her breath through her nose in a whiny ‘mmm-hmm.’
‘I only like cinnamon, but I will have some of your weak coffee,’ he said, and retreated.
Leaning against the counter to support her wobbly knees, Julia felt like she was turning to mush.
She kept her back to him as she nibbled on her breakfast and admonished herself for being so affected by big shoulders and scruff.
Back in the living room, Julia left him on the sofa and craned around the edge of the television to plug in the headphones. She was sure he checked her out while she bent and stretched. As she turned with the headphones in hand he all but confirmed it by quickly meeting her gaze. He raised his coffee cup with a smirk and took a sip.
She was a little shaky as she approached, and she detected a challenge once she stood over him.
‘So, since you’re stuck in a loop of listening to yourself mangle the French language, I’m going to trick you.’
‘You plan to torture me with bad music?’
‘You’re not that hopeless, at least not yet. No, Mick, I’m going to use an old trick to make you speak perfect French. I’m going to play a bunch of phrases in your ears, and you’re just going to repeat them. You won’t be able to hear yourself so you won’t be able to criticise yourself. Head back.’
Mick eased all the way back on to the sofa and rested his head on the edge. Julia chuckled as she held the headphones over him.
‘Easy, this isn’t a lap dance.’
‘What is a lap dance?’ he asked, but the twitching at the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
‘Nice try,’ she said, and dropped the headphones over his ears before her giggle could escape.
She grabbed the remote and took a step back, only to bump the edge of the sofa. Hot coffee splashed her leg and she jerked, then toppled forward, right into Mick’s lap.
The oof! sound he made matched his befuddled expression, but neither could compare to her scattered nerves as she felt the sting where his hand had landed on her ass with a slap.
He scowled, but there was something playful in that expression. ‘I ask for answer, not demonstration, but I will not complain.’
‘Oh…shush.’
He offered her no assistance as she tried to get up, instead looking infuriatingly pleased with her efforts as she wriggled over his lap.
Julia rolled her eyes. ‘Can you let go?’
‘If you fall and hit your head on the table, I might go to jail. No more French and no more hockey for me.’
His big body quaked against hers as he laughed, and Julia gave up with a groan.
Humiliation aside, his lap wasn’t a bad place to find herself. Beneath her thighs, his made a hard seat, and through his sweater she caught the tick of his heartbeat speeding up. He had yet to remove his hand from the curve of her ass, and she could appreciate the irony that the hand that had delivered the blow was the one that soothed the ache now. She’d never needed a code of conduct before when it came to her tutoring work, but as the compulsion to wrap her arms around his neck struck her, she had to admit that a list of dos and don’ts had merit.
Don’t fall into the lap of enormous Russian on my sofa.
Do speedily rise from his lap and apologise.
Don’t even think about making things worse by entertaining how easy it would be to unzip that fuzzy sweater and reach inside.
Do outlaw all thoughts of crazy-hot sex on living-room floor with hockey player you’ve only just met.
‘Jesus, Julia, most businesses just use coupons to sweeten the pot.’
As Kris clomped to the bottom of the stairs, Julia vaulted herself out of Mick’s arms and sloshed even more coffee across the table to stain his textbook. She managed to save his laptop from the puddle just in time, but there was no saving her dignity as she looked from her student to her roommate.
Still looking like a horror show, Kris waved as she headed for the kitchen. ‘Good morning, Russian guy.’
‘Hello…’ He leaned aside and watched Kris’s disappearing act, then looked up at Julia. ‘Crazy-haired woman in fluffy bunny slippers?’
Julia dropped his laptop on to the sofa and sighed. ‘That’s just my roommate. She’ll go back upstairs in a minute. I’ll – I’ll be right back with a dish towel.’
She raced into the kitchen and met Kris’s cheeky smile head-on.
‘I fell, and I have nothing more to say.’
‘Please, another thirty seconds and he would have had his hand in your bra. It’s cool, Julia. All that teaching the language of love and eventually you were going to come across someone who knew how to use it.’
‘First of all, he’s terrible at French. Second of all –’ She snapped a tea towel from the oven handle and thrust it in Kris’s face. ‘Second of all, shut up.’
Mick stood as she returned to the living room and stretched out his arm. ‘Let me. My fault for not letting you loose.’
Julia waved the towel like a flag. ‘I’ve got it. You just sit back and put those headphones on.’
She held her breath until the video played, her computer recorded and Mick recited one bland phrase after another. She signalled to him that she was stepping out of the room for a minute.
Kris hadn’t moved, save for the addition of the cup of coffee she slurped from.
Julia thumped her head against the fridge. ‘This never would have happened if I kept my job at the bookstore.’
Cackling, Kris shoved away from the counter and slung her arm over Julia’s shoulders. ‘I don’t think you could find anyone who would put grinding on top of a hot Russian on the con side.’
‘I didn’t grind,’ she said in a sigh, then groaned. ‘OK, so I did a little unintentional grinding.’
‘And did he grind back?’
‘I can’t remember. It’s all one big blur now.’ She shrugged away and ducked into the fridge for something cold. The water would probably have served her better dumped over her head, but she settled for guzzling back half the bottle.
‘Bien, merci,’ came from the living room in that rich baritone shambling over the words. ‘Comment vous appelez-v
ous? Où sont les toilettes?’
Both women giggled, and Julia shook her head as she headed back to the living room. ‘Better. Not much better, but better. Oh, remind me to tell you about the hairy palms later.’
Kris gurgled on her mouthful of coffee. ‘The what?’
With Kris alive and kicking – and probably eavesdropping – from her bed fort at the top of the stairs, the lesson finished without a hitch, save for Mick’s insistence that the recording of his lesson sounded like ‘robot trying to seduce bank machine’.
Still, he smiled as he packed up his satchel. ‘It was good day, even with disorganised and clumsy teacher.’
‘Hey, this disorganised and clumsy teacher just taught you how to ask where the nearest police station is. You’ll thank me if you’re ever on the run from assassins through Paris.’
He slung his satchel over his shoulders and marched towards the door, his gait far less rigid than his entrance.
‘You were nervous when you showed up, weren’t you?’
He turned before the door, sheepish as he raked his hand through his wild hair. ‘A little. You are my second French tutor. Last one frustrated me, was no help at all. I was worried to find out that I am too stupid to learn French.’
‘Are you serious? This will be your third language. That’s one more than I have. As motivated as you are, you’ll be translating for the United Nations in five years if you put your mind to it. I take it I’ll see you next Thursday?’
‘Eight o’clock.’ He raised his brows. ‘Or is it nine o’clock, after bathtime?’
There was something naughty about the way he teased her. She liked it.
‘Or,’ he went on, ‘maybe we meet sooner. Monday?’
Her first inclination was to refuse a date from a student, but quickly reminded herself that he wasn’t proposing a date. She didn’t think. She was pretty sure.
‘I’m on campus on Monday,’ she explained, peering up at him to gauge his expression. She thought she caught some disappointment, but he was so hard to read. ‘I’m in the library until about four, but I can grab a spot in the language lab for five.’
He hesitated. ‘Lab? Other people there to hear me?’
‘There are private resource rooms.’
Mick didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. ‘I will meet you there at five. Are drinks allowed in lab?’
‘I think so.’
‘I will bring weak coffee with spill-proof top for clumsy woman,’ he said with a wink. He wrenched open the door and stepped on to the porch, then spun on the top step. ‘And doughnuts with sprinkles.’
‘Don’t go too crazy,’ she called, and bounced a little on her toes as he jogged down the walkway. Broad back, narrow hips and trunk-like thighs. So much muscle moving under those layers. She prayed she would suddenly be gifted with X-ray vision.
His entrance might have been a little overwhelming, but his exit was perfect.
Chapter Two
‘Did you see Volkov after the game? It’s a wonder he had any teeth left after MacKenzie nailed him like that.’
‘Yeah, but he got his revenge, even if it did cost him a penalty. MacKenzie will probably wet his pants the next time the Bandits play the Royals. I wouldn’t want to be on the ice with Volkov when he’s in a good mood, let alone after I split open his face.’
Julia didn’t look up as Professors Decker and Carmichael made their camp at the table by the window in the faculty lounge. She kept her eyes on her laptop screen, but every word they spoke went through her like electricity.
Though she was supposed to be editing the forthcoming issue of the history society newsletter, she abandoned her task immediately and opened her web browser. Fingers flew over the keyboard until she had navigated to a local sports page.
Julia had never taken an interest in sports before. Once gym class became more than just dodgeball and relay races, she’d lost all interest and barely scraped by for the remainder of her physical education. Pilates and spin class didn’t count. Neither did that pole-dancing class she and Kris had taken last year, even if it made her ass and thighs feel like they had been ripped off Beyoncé and strapped to her body.
She hovered her cursor over the recap of last night’s game between the Bandits and the Royals and asked herself for the umpteenth time: do you really want to be this person?
Since her lessons with Mick had begun, the time online she earmarked for checking celebrity gossip had been replaced by research into the career of Mikhail ‘The Dragon’ Volkov.
Or, as Kris put it, stalking Mikhail ‘The Dragon’ Volkov online.
Though Julia hated to admit it, every time she turned on her computer she found herself wandering to his Twitter stream, which was a strange combination of Russian and English conversations broken by the occasional retweet from his favourite musicians or athletes. She didn’t have the guts to follow him, nor did she muster the courage to send him a request on Facebook. She did, however, follow the Bandits’ Twitter stream and had seen the update ‘Volkov to the box for hooking’.
She had no idea what most of it meant, but she still got a little thrill when she saw those tweets popping up in her stream.
She’d learned that her student was from a small town in Russia and was 25 years old. This family dairy she had pictured as being a small family business was actually an industrial-scale operation in Western Russia. He had played through university in Moscow before joining the Bandits last season, and he’d quickly become a favourite of the fans.
Mick was a raging hothead on the ice. He held grudges. He could be seen stalking an enemy on the ice, gliding on the periphery as he worked out his plot. He was a hell of a player, and when he went in for the kill he didn’t miss. That was why someone had given him the moniker ‘The Dragon’.
Resigning herself to today’s bout of online surveillance, Julia opened the recap of last night’s game.
As soon as the featured image popped up, Julia’s stomach lurched.
Taken as Mick stepped off the ice, the picture showed a hulking, furious beast with a busted eyebrow, blood smearing half his face and splotches all over his jersey.
She might not have known much about hockey, but staring at that picture she knew that Professor Carmichael was right: Mick had revenge in his eyes and whoever had bloodied him was a dead man skating.
Still, even with the blood and sweat, Mick was a magnificent sight to behold. Pictures like these – and she’d become an expert at tracking them down across the vast expanse of the Internet – had fuelled more than a few masturbatory sessions in the wee morning hours.
Earlier in the week she’d come across a candid shot of him on a teammate’s Twitter stream: in the locker room and stripped to the waist, most of him obscured by the torrent of ice water being dumped over his head but flashing just enough skin to make Julia wish her vibrator had a turbo setting.
Not that she had needed it. She had almost bitten a hole in her pillow to prevent herself giving Kris an unpleasant and awkward wake-up call as she held the oscillating tip to her clit.
With this gory picture of him post-brawl, the image her filthy mind conjured for the aftermath was of Mick reclining in a steaming bath, head tilted back and fingers curling against the edge of the tub as she tended to his wounded brow, minus all her clothes.
She closed her browser before the scene in her mind could escalate to the inevitable outcome in which they were both in the tub, water sloshing on to the tiles, his hands on her hips and hers gripping the edge of the bath as he drove into her from behind.
Groaning, she tipped her head back and stared at a water spot on the ceiling tiles.
Do maintain a professional rapport with your hot Russian student.
Do not entertain fantasies about doing it doggy-style in a candle-lit bathroom.
Do look into the cost efficiency of a rechargeable vibrator or risk blowing this month’s grocery budget on batteries.
The table juddered, and before she could raise her head Kris’s f
ace appeared over hers.
‘I thought you had a date.’
‘It’s not a date,’ Julia insisted, and sighed as a travel mug appeared above her nose. ‘Oooh, is that chocolate orange?’
‘You only get half,’ Kris told her, and shook the second cup free, ‘otherwise, you’ll end up running back and forth to the bathroom the entire time and ruin your date.’
‘It’s not a date. He pays me, I teach him to shop for groceries in another language. That’s the extent of our relationship.’
Kris narrowed her eyes as she dumped half the tea into the empty cup. ‘Except for the incredibly explicit eye-fucking that goes on whenever the two of you are camped out in the living room.’
Julia looked around, but no one else in the faculty lounge had heard. ‘Would you please lower your voice? And mind your own business.’
‘I am minding my own business. As long as our living room remains the setting for this snail’s-pace seduction, it remains my business. If you two don’t get a move on, one of these days I’m going to switch your instruction videos with a French porno.’ As she blew on the surface of her tea, Kris watched Julia with narrowed eyes. ‘It’s OK to want to bang him.’
Julia buried her face in her hands.
If only it was that simple. She could handle this merciless flood of lust. It was the crush that was killing her.
There was no denying that a big part of her attraction to Mick was physical – and with a physique like that, she defied anyone to blame her – but just as treacherous was the tickle that danced through her body when she realised those risqué comments he had made weren’t a miscommunication but a tease, and she couldn’t stop giggling.
Kris wasn’t too far off the mark when it came to those ‘dates’. The more time she spent with Mick, the less it seemed like work. Sure, there were still the tutorials and the videos, his frustrated attempts to pronounce words properly and put together phrases, but there were also smiles and giggles, and a whole lot of teasing and flirting.
She completely lost herself in the moment and more than once she caught herself leaning a little too close, subconsciously inviting a kiss before remembering that she was his tutor and he was her student.
Fire & Ice Page 2